A journey of triathlon, training, and everything else

Category Archives: Bike

The pacific populaire ride today was good. For the first hour, I was riding with the 2nd group out on the road. Then, I got a flat which meant I lost the group. I did most of the rest of the ride by myself which was a good challenge and I put in a good effort.

Last year, I had two flats so I guess only one this year is an improvement. I was annoyed but the flat tire was also a nice excuse to go at my own pace. My ride time was 3:35, my garmin tells me that it took me 10min to change my flat. Perhaps it’s a good thing that I rode solo, my friend was involved in a crash and broke his collarbone.Â Shoot, get well soon, Tim!Â There will be no biking for me next weekend because we’re going to Mexico! I’ll be doing my swim workouts from here:

Wow, was I ever exhausted after my “Big Peachy Week”.Â I was glad to be scheduled for a couple of easy days of training.Â I needed them.Â Fortunately, my work week was pretty flexible with me attending a conference downtown.Â I think I may have scared some of the conference attendees with my lunch eating abilities.Â This past week was my biggest week of training so far in the build up to IronMan and it was great. My uncle says that I’m twice as fit as the last time I did IronMan.Â My response was, “then I should be able to go twice as fast!”Â Now that would be something.

So the Peach was a no wetsuit swim.Â 24oC water.Â This was the first time I’ve raced in a no wetsuit triathlon.Â My swim time wasn’t a time I was particularly happy with… but at least I can blame it on the wetsuit (or lack of).Â [It can’t have been the 3.8km swim on Friday or the 2.1km swim race on Saturday or all the rest of the week].Â PS.Â I did the IMC swim course on Friday in 1:10 (with no drafting).Â I was happy with that.

This weekend, I raced the Oliver Half Ironman for the third time. I surprised everyone (even myself a bit) with the my results. I was inspired by my fellow racers, friends and fans. Now, I’m ready to take what I learned and keep working hard in the build up to Ironman.

Pre-Race
My pre-race prep couldn’t have been better with good friends, a party on Friday, an incredible luxury suite, a relaxed warmup on Saturday, and a couple hours of reading papers for an article I’m writing this summer (my nutrition plan neatly printed on the back of one of the papers). I went to bed feeling relaxed, prepared, and confident.

Swim
After my warmup, I decided to head to the far left hand side of the swim start. I saw a few folks I knew and realized they were following me and positioning themselves behind me to draft. Darn, don’t you ladies realize that I’m trying to get away from everyone because I hate the craziness of these swim starts. All I want is a bit of open water. I don’t know how its possible but I got kicked on the very first part of the swim – like in the first two strokes. My left google filled with water and a bit of panic started setting in. Should I stop? What if I lose my contact and can’t see on the bike? Continue reading →

It’s good to ride ( work | play | live ) with people who challenge you while at the same time allow you to be at your best.Â A couple weekends back, I had a great ride with good friends out on Zero Ave who do just that.Â I rode hard, pulled lots, got dropped, and pushed the tempo.Â It was a really fun day where we felt like we met the challenge. We earned those turkey sandwiches!Â Five years ago, I rode a very similar route while training for my first IronMan.Â Last time, I suffered. This time, I was strong.Â My post from five years ago summarizes that ride with the title, Riding with the Big Boys.Â The ride stats are comparable but the experience was SO different.Â This time, instead of being wrecked, I had an awesome run after the ride (and on Sunday).Â In fact, I think this training weekend made me finally tell myself, “You ARE fast enough for race wheels!”Â I’m in a new space… and I like this place.Â Watch out, Oliver, here I come.

Here’s me at 6:30am on race morning. You really can’t have a bad race day when you dress up as a bunny!

Today went really well. I really enjoyed racing and volunteering with my SAA and South Delta friends – my local triathlon community is really made up of a great group of people. So many good laughs today. The kids race was so fun. I made kids laugh, fixed googles, and helped some scared ones. These kids have the tenacity to just keep going and have fun (despite everything being new and quite scary). It was really quite inspiring! My race goal for today was to react well to unpredictable things that get thrown my way – so seeing these kids do it like it was no big deal was a good start.

After the volunteering, I showered and tried to stay off my feet and for the couple hours wait until my swim start. Hanging out with Rob and Evan on the pool deck and joking about trying to beat each other was a good fun way to kick off the race. My swim was great. I was really really comfortable and fast. My swim time was 12:15 for 700m*. I even was comfortable enough to do a couple of flip turns. The first step of reacting well — was definitely covered here in this busy swim — well done, Joanne.

As I pushed my bike through transition, I noticed my hat caught on my bike pedal, so I calmly stopped and placed it to the side. One of the volunteers noticed and picked it up for me. Second reaction – also good The bike was good. I just went. There was no one to pass or catch so I just went. As I started I noticed that my bike computer wasn’t on – so I turned it on – and it beeped with the low battery warning. So I turned it off and just kept riding. OK did you really have to put so many tests out there for yourself! As I came back into transition and was putting on my shoes, I heard this voice, “Joanne, do you want your visor for the run?” So I just kept putting on my shoes, and said, “Yes, thanks!” Man, you’re getting good at this. The run was fine. My legs felt weird coming off the bike. A reminder that I need to do more brick runs. I felt good.

I had a 3-4 min personal best today and accomplished my race goal but one of my favorite parts of today was the sense of community that I felt. There were so many great people involved. We had a lot of fun together.

*Unfortunately, the time that was recorded for my swim was 13:15 – sometimes at this race the swim times are wrong – oh well. I still had fun, despite the swim time AND I was genuinely laughing about it. Race goal really accomplished, well done!

Barton (who’s in the picture with me above) said to me, “So, are you going to be fast this year?” I guess so, Barton! …and I’m excited.

Warm weather makes for such good riding.Â When you ride outside in the Winter, you really appreciate warm days.Â You also need to change your brake pads.Â I had mine changed this past weekend and they don’t owe me a cent.Â Nothing left – all that winter road grit stripped ’em down to nothing.Â It may take some time to adjust to riding with brakes again.

I seem to be immune to the triathlon bug this year. You know the bug – the one hits for weeks or even months after you sign up for some race that scares the pants off you. Not that I’m cured, I do forsee that this bug will hit again in the future. It’s just that I’m seeing that there’s more to this sport than just an obsession with training & racing.

I’m finding other equally rewarding ways to stay involved. For example, this weekend I volunteered at a water station at the Ladner Half marathon. It was great to see everyone out there! As a bonus, we were stationed way out on the country farm roads right beside a self serve farmers kiosk with beautiful purple, yellow and orange tomatoes.

I’ve also been using my bike as a way of traveling lately. Commuting is a great way to get in the training, even if you don’t have a big race that scares the pants off you.

My all time favorite motivator for getting out there is being outdoors. With no racing bug to focus the speed and distance, I’ve been enjoying the settings even more. I have really appreciated my favorite trails and especially the swims in Boundary Bay. Getting outdoors is what it’s all about!

A while back, I had a small film crew follow me around to make a “day in the life of..” style short film. It was a pretty interesting experience – and as a side bonus, I got some really cool photos of my bike.

To get these photos, and the associated film footage, I rode behind a pace car with driver, photographer and cameraman hanging out the back.Â As I mentioned, it was quite an interesting experience.

**note If you see a “this workout is not available for viewing error”, find the – amp; – in the URL and delete those four characters – then the links should work. Stupid WSIWG editor is screwing up my links

I’m 7/7 in the Feb bike challenge! It’s Monday and I have to admit, my legs are tired. Riding 1hr on your bike isn’t actually that much, but I’m feeling it. With such a busy weekend**, scheduling workouts was a challenge (Sunday included a 6am trainer ride and a 9pm speed endurance run – accompanied by Torbin on the bike with lights). Today, I opted out of bike commuting to give my legs a couple more hours of rest. The downside is that I may be on the trainer until the wee hours this evening.

**I took the Triathlon Community Coaching course this weekend. I made some great new contacts/friends and took away some great practical tips about safety. On that note, I’m going to go buy myself a RoadID right now. If you don’t already have one, do the same!

Here’s what my Feb totals look like so far.

Bike for 182.1 km in 08:43
Run for 25.1 km in 02:22
Total Duration: 11:05